Mr. Anderson cannot be considered a model traveller. His "Six Weeks in Norway"[7 ] gives hardly anything but the starting out on each morning, the names of places passed, and the arrival at night. But the traveller in that country needs something of just this kind, and this book will therefore do very well for a guide. Indeed, it is well filled with facts suitable to such a service. Norway is a hard country to travel in. The frequent rains and steady fish diet are depressing to dry foreigners with a previous sufficiency of phosphorus, and like our own country there is little besides the scenery to engage attention. Nor is the interior the best part of the country. It looks best in a profile view seen from the water. Whoever would see Norway must visit the fiords in a yacht, and not trouble the land much.
The discussion of the mutual attitude of religion and science, particularly in regard to what is known as the theory of development, goes ceaselessly on. Books upon the subject follow each other so rapidly that it would seem that they must long since have ceased to find any considerable number of readers, much more of buyers. We confess that we are somewhat weary of the controversy; particularly as it is kept up chiefly on the side of those who call themselves religionists, who mostly seem to be unable to bring forward any new arguments, and no less to fail to appreciate the attitude and the purpose of those whom they have made their antagonists. Science, as we believe, did not seek this controversy, but was forced into it by the attacks of the champions of religion, and is now necessarily kept somewhat on the defence. It would seem that nearly all that can be said, and all that need be said, has already been brought forward. But each new disputant that enters upon the defence of theological dogma seems to be convinced that he is the man of men who is to protect religion against what he believes to be the danger in which it is placed by the observation of nature and the speculation upon discovered facts which now occupies so many physicists, including some of first-rate ability.
We may as well say, if we have not already said in our previous remarks upon the books upon this question which have been reviewed in the pages of "The Galaxy," that we do not regard the theory of evolution as established. Facts of great interest bearing upon it have been discovered, and deductions from those facts have been made and set forth with great ingenuity and plausibility, so that it demands serious attention from the scientific point of view. But this seems to us all that has been done. Our feelings and our convictions, not to say our creed, are all against it. It is a degrading and a hopeless view of the universe, and particularly of man. Him it places in the attitude of a mere physical item in the cosmos—one link, although the last and a golden one, in a chain of events the beginning and the future of which are alike unknown. All our instincts revolt against it. We don't believe it; and we candidly confess that we are in the position, abhorrent and ridiculous to the scientific mind, of not wishing to believe it. We believe, and we desire to believe, that man was made, however and when, as man; and that however inferior he may have been in his first condition to what he is now, he was never anything less than human.
Feeling thus and believing thus, we nevertheless cannot see that those who are resisting science on the ground that its assumed discoveries are at war with the assumed teachings of revealed religion are doing wisely, or that they, even the best of them, have written one word which in the least impairs the value or the significance of the facts and the deductions which science has set forth. Science is only to be met by science. Theology cannot touch it. A beast and a fish cannot fight: one must stay on land and the other must stay in the water. Religionists, on the one hand, say that if science has discovered, or professes to have discovered, anything at variance with the Mosaic cosmogony, it is not to be believed. Scientific observers say on the other that if theology teaches anything at variance with fact and logic, so much the worse for theology. This attitude of the two will be maintained. It is natural, and in a certain sense right, that it should be maintained. Each will hold its position. Neither can accept the conclusions of the other or its methods without both ceasing to be what they are. Notwithstanding this difficulty, which is radical, the controversy will go on, until it is decided, not by argument, but by time, experience, and the moral and intellectual development of mankind.
A laborious contribution to the controversy has been made, by Clark Braden,[8 ] who announces himself as president of Abingdon college, Illinois. It is our own fault, probably, that we have never heard before of the president or of the college. Neither he, however, nor his publishers will fail through lack of confidence to make themselves known, or because they have any misgivings as to the sufficiency of their work. The author, in a prefatory note addressed "to reviewers and critics," invites the most searching criticism of his book, but earnestly requests that it shall be carefully read, and asks to have all criticisms, particularly those which are adverse, sent to him, that they may, as he says, "aid him in his search for truth." But plainly he has little doubt that he has settled "the question of the hour," and what he wishes is to enjoy the spectacle of science vainly struggling in his giant grasp. His tone throughout the book is one of overweening self-confidence. Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley, Spencer, Carpenter, and the rest are to be snuffed out by the president of Abingdon college, Illinois; nay, their very methods of research and modes of reasoning are to be swept into the intellectual dust-bin of that institution by his besom. And in a long address which accompanies his book, in which the publishers speak, but the style of which bears a remarkable resemblance to that of Mr. Braden, it is pointed out with unction that while much has been written by the advocates of the theory of creation by intelligence, in refutation of the evolution hypothesis, yet "no thoughtful reader has ever felt satisfied with any one book"; "no one has attempted to present, in all its infinity, mystery, and unfathomable depth, the problem for which evolution is offered as a solution. This is a fundamental failure." Of course this great need is to be supplied, this fundamental failure made good, by Mr. Clark Braden's book. And then the publishers break forth in words which seem to be the genuine utterances of their own feeling: "The book is a compactly printed volume of four hundred and eighty pages, printed on the best quality of paper, and printed and bound in the best style of art. It contains as much matter as most three-dollar books, and more than many of them.... Every preacher and believer of the Bible should have a copy. All who profess to believe these theories of evolution should, above all others, have a copy. We want to place a copy in the hands of all parties." Doubtless. This is delicious. Every one who believes the Bible should "have a copy," and every one who don't believe it should "have a copy." In a word, to "have a copy" of this book is the chief end of man, the first requisite to reasonable existence for every human being. And then the publishers wind up with a request for copies of the reviews of the book, as "we desire to use them in the sale of the book, and in selecting papers in which we will advertise." Innocent creatures! that last touch shows how guileless they are; how they wouldn't think of such a thing as offering a bribe to editors and publishers of newspapers; and how purely disinterested they are in their desire to place "a copy" in the hands of "all parties."
We fear that our pages will not be selected for the advertising of this book; which, by the way, is commonly printed and meanly bound. Candidly we do not think that it is the end of all things. Possibly there may be some controversy hereafter; some men may go on investigating nature and believing in facts alone. The book reminds us of a social sketch in "Punch," which shows two dilapidated field preachers, evidently among the most ignorant and feeble-minded of their class, meeting on the edge of a heath from which people are going away. One says to the other, "Been on the 'eath? What did you preach about?" "Oh," is the reply, "I give it to Darwin an' 'Uxley to rights." Not that Mr. Braden is in any sense ignorant, or in any way to be compared to "Punch's" field preacher except in his evident belief that he has "give it to Darwin an' 'Uxley to rights," and in the perfect indifference with which Darwin and Huxley will regard his performance. Briefly, nothing worthy of particular remark in Mr. Braden's book. Those who wish to find the whole question between science and revealed religion set forth as it appears to Mr. Braden, and the facts and arguments of science met by the usual stock-in-trade weapons of the theologian and the metaphysician, may find all this in Mr. Braden's book, in which the author certainly does go pretty well over the whole ground. What is really his theme is found in this passage of one of his appendices (p. 382): "The issue between theist and atheist is: What is the necessary, absolute, uncaused, unconditioned being or substance? What is it that is the self-existent, independent, self-sustaining and eternal? What is the ground, source, origin, or cause of all existences and phenomena? This is the problem of problems, that determines all systems of science, philosophy, and thought." Well, to these questions science answers, We don't know; we don't pretend to know, and we probably never shall know. We have discovered by patient observation certain facts, and, according to the laws of right reason, we think that between these facts there are such and such relations. In this we may be mistaken. If we are, very well; we shall be glad to correct our error. In either case we shall go on observing, considering, and reasoning, but confining ourselves strictly to fact. If any dogma or transcendental notion that you know of is at variance with fact or with reason, we may be sorry or we may not; but in either case we can't help it. Dogmas and notions are nothing to us. And as to that self-existent, unconditioned, eternal intelligence that you talk about, pray tell us what you know about it. We shall be glad to learn. Don't tell us what you think, believe, or have an inward conviction of, but what you know. What do you know about it? Give us at least a solid basis of absolute knowledge to stand upon and to start from, and we are ready to listen to you. If you cannot do this, good morning; look you after your dogmas, and we will keep to our facts. The truth is that not Paul and Barnabas were more driven to part company than the disputant who sets up as of any authority a theological dogma, no matter what, or a metaphysical abstraction, no matter what, and the man who studies nature scientifically. One believes because he believes, and really at bottom from no other reason; the other is in a chronic state of inquiry; he believes nothing in regard to any subject of inquiry but that which rests upon the ground of absolute knowledge. Mr. Braden's book, although it is filled with evidences of wide reading and high education, reads like a book of metaphysical and theological commonplace. It reminds us of our college days in the lecture room of the professor of moral philosophy. It is well enough in its way, but it will attract little attention in the pending controversy. Of its style we must say that, considering the position of its author, we wish it were better, and that in the use of language it were an example more worthy to be followed. Its first sentence is: "One of the wise utterances of one whom his contemporaries declared spoke as never man spoke, was that no wise man would begin," etc. On the next page we have such vulgar error as "transpiring before our eyes," "decay and dissolution transpiring in every department of nature"; and as to shall and will the author seems to have no conception of their proper functions in English speech. This, for the president of Abingdon college, is not well.
—Of a somewhat different character, and of much greater importance, is a little book which presents James Martineau's last utterances on this subject.[9 ] It is made up of an address delivered in Manchester New College, October 6, 1874, and two papers which appeared subsequently in the "Contemporary Review." Dr. Bellows, in his introduction, expresses the feeling with which religious minds will read these papers when he says, "it is refreshing in the midst of the crude replies which alarmed religionists are hastily hurling at the scientific assailants of faith in a living God, to hear one thoroughly furnished scholar, profound metaphysician, and earnest Christian entering his thoughtful and deeply considered protest against the tendencies or conclusions of modern materialism." Mr. Martineau may now be justly regarded as the leading champion of faith. He has this distinction because he is not hampered by creeds, or articles, or hierarchal responsibility; he is yet an earnest believer in the essentials of the Christian religion as it is accepted by all orthodox Protestant denominations, while to these qualifications he adds a wide range of knowledge and eminent ability as a reasoner. He is able to meet the men of science on their own ground, and he does so. They will not acknowledge themselves vanquished; and perhaps from the very nature of the case, as we have already remarked, they cannot be vanquished by any argument in which revelation or metaphysics enters as a premise; but they will not refuse their admiration at the union of subtlety and strength, of ability and courtesy with which they are treated. We find many admirable passages in this book marked for reference, as we went through it; but we must pass them by. During the last few months we have devoted so many pages of our department of literature to the discussion of this subject, that readers with whom it is not a hobby might reasonably object to a further continuance of the subject here. We content ourselves with recommending this little, thoughtful, strongly written book to the attention of our readers. They will find the best array of arguments with which to meet scientific materialism.
—From the same publishers, who seem very catholic in their reception of authors, we have a volume which, the more because of its ability and its calmness of tone, Mr. Martineau would regard with sadness, and with horror, and perhaps with dread.[10 ] Mr. Frothingham has undertaken the task of studying the records of the foundation of Christianity from a purely literary point of view and with all the aids that can be derived from criticism. The result of his studies may be said to be the satisfaction of his own mind that Jesus of Nazareth was not and did not intend to be the founder of a new religion; that he believed himself to be and set himself up as the Messias, the temporal Messias, expected by the Jews; and that Christianity was founded by Paul. His conception of Paul is striking, and however he may fail in establishing his position in regard to him, it certainly must be admitted that he has made of him a very interesting and energetic figure, and one which is consistent with itself and with all that we are told of the great apostle to the Gentiles. He calls him both Jew and Greek—Jew by parentage, nurture, training, and genius, Greek by birthplace, residence, and association, an enthusiast, even to fanaticism, by temperament, and yet freed from extreme narrowness of mind by intercourse with the people and the literature of other nations. He was a Jew whose feeling upon the Christ question was always intense, so much so that he worried and tormented the people who did not believe as he did. He was a Messianic believer of the school of the Pharisees, or strict Jews; but all at once, as such things do happen to such men, another aspect of the Messianic expectation burst upon him with the splendor of a revelation, and determined his career. To the conception of the Messias and of Jesus's conformity to it which suddenly took possession of Paul, Mr. Frothingham assigns the origin of the Christian religion as it was known in the second century. With a cool and almost humorous adaptation of a political phrase of the day, he calls this Paul's "new departure." That Mr. Frothingham's book is clear in thought, interesting in substance, agreeable and good in style every one acquainted with his writings will readily believe. As to the points that he has undertaken to establish, we are pretty sure that after reading his book few will think with him who were not ready to do so before they began it.